I did a job for a rich client the other day in a gated community He gave me the gate code. The houses are exactly the houses I want to target. Rich, money to spare, lazy blah blah. I don’t have money for direct mail right now, but I do have 1500 postcards ready to go.
Would it be so bad to go door to door and put them on doors?
Communities*
Back on topic, I’ve also questioned doing this a few times but havent decided to go through with it. Not only are the homes ridiculously spaced apart, but being the richer crowd, I can see someone calling on this to complain.
I agree with Rivetor on that, but honestly…I don’t know where you are from, but here in San Diego, putting a flier or postcard on the front door won’t work. Here, even tho they may be rich, they are anything BUT lazy. Most of them are NEVER home, and when they do finally get home, they will go thru the garage door, not the front door. So they may never see it, and when they do it will be all sun faded etc…
The mail box’s are usually what I hit. I know-I know…still don’t care.
Most mail box’s tho, are community box’s and you can’t get a hair in that thing…you might want to try this tho, go drive thru that community, write down the addresses, and mail them just to those houses. Couldn’t be more than 40 right? That is one of the communities you are targeting right? Then keep sending them stuff every 3 weeks- until they are your customer.
Are you saying that putting a postcard in a doorhanger bag and leaving it on the front door won’t work with the larger more expensive homes?
Also, are you also saying you slip your flyer or postcard into the mailbox? What if the postman sees this, as I would imagine he almost certainly will. Won’t you get fined, arrested, or in alot of trouble somehow doing that? It’s against the law to tamper with, or put unmailed mail in a mailbox. Just wondering, cause I would love to do that instead of walking up to the door. 
Lol wouldn’t we all? Yes, it’s illegal, highly illegal actually… and not to mention it’s a bit difficult to be ‘sneaky’ about it when the fliers you’re putting in the mailboxes have your number on the front 
In some areas they will not let you come back if you do that.
Its true. Like I said tho…its what I do. I’m hungry. I am also selective tho. In the gated communities where I work, there are no mailbox’s except for the big community box’s on the street and you can’t get nothing in there anyway. So I just write down the addresses and mail them.
im pretty hungry too, and they have the community mail boxes too.
Would a postcard with a personal letter about the street name work good?
I do loads of work in gated communities. I’ve found it best to avoid flyering these communities completely. Direct mail is the way to go. Eventually referals will take over within the gated communities and you won’t even have to send direct mail in order to stay busy.
I have been given entrance codes (some specific to my company only) to the gates at the communities I work in. There’s no way I would flyer or leave door hangers and jeopardize the trust these communities have in me and my company.
Others may differ but I simply will not flyer a gated community. Non-gated communities…fine, go ahead and flyer but you’ll still pizz some people off. I know from experience that there’s one in every neighborhood that will jump your azz if they see you flyering.
Same here, I have gate codes for several of the nicer gated communities but will not go back into those and flyer them.
How about doing one or two of the smaller houses for free inside of of the community? to get referrals?
Why waste the steps, just chuck it in the paper box
I have never, ever, ever seen a house in san antonio with a paper box
They are very strict about fliers.
You’ll often get busted really quickly. There are people in those neighborhoods that make it their hobby to catch you flyering and advertising. Try checking with the homeowners association. Shoot them straight and be honest. They might be able to refer you some work or put you into their referal database. If you’ve worked for someone in the neighborhood, make sure you mention that. It’s often amazing what you get from just being honest with the association.
Let me ask all of you that replied to this thread to put yourself into a gated community homeowners shoes. lets say your some well known person like a celeb or a CEO of some huge company or whatever. These people buy homes in a gated communities because they want to be selective of who is in their world. They feel somewhat secure that there is a gate that keeps them away from potential danger. If I walked down to my mailbox and saw a flier stuck to it or inside the box, you bet I would be calling you and giving you something to think about. These places are gated for a reason and that reason is security. Unauthorized access (flyering) just told every homeowner that you breached their security. I know some have gotten jobs this way but so have i with a postcard. Truthfully, would you be mad if you were the homeowner or would you just shrug it off?
[QUOTE=winderwarsher;81948]Let me ask all of you that replied to this thread to put yourself into a gated community homeowners shoes.
I did that long ago.
[QUOTE]Truthfully, would you be mad if you were the homeowner or would you just shrug it off?
Yes I would. And that is why I recommended not flyering gated communities in my post in this thread.
Why don’t you just ask your customer If you could put one of those lawn signs in their yard?? lmaojfomc
Yes, that would be a very bad idea. They pay a high price to have the security that gates are supposed to provide. If you ignore that, don’t expect to get much work from them.
I like the suggestion that several others have made. Drive through the area gathering the addresses and use direct mail to reach them.
+1
